Resuming Pathfinder

My Wednesday group decided that it was time to return to Pathfinder, so 13th Age is out for now and Pathfinder is back in 100%. However we're going for low-powered gritty Pathfinder, which is being done by starting at level 1, with a 15 point attribute spread instead of rolling or doing 20 point buy. Everyone used the Background path generator from the Ultimate Campaign book; that's a nice extra feature that I have at last seen in action and I liked it, as the random generation of a background history created some interesting story potential.

The game feels different....really different, actually, since playing 13th Age for a few months has created a strong sense of contrast between what we left off on last week and what we're doing now. 13th Age is a game about Big Damn Heroes who are Really Important. Pathfinder down-dirty-and-gritty like this is about the peons that 13th Age heroes use as stepping stones to greatness. While there's something to be said for a system that cuts to the chase and starts everyone off with cool stuff and amazing connections to the icons, there's an entirely different and meaningful feel to a campaign where you know you're going to earn every damn bit of power, every conection through blood, sweat and tears: and mortality is an ever-looming terminus to your success.

Yes, you could say we're going old school on this one, or more accurately we're going back to old school. Pathfinder may be a modern edition of the game, but you can still run it hardcore classic style if everyone is on board with the notion.

Grell in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

Despite a fairly robust playtest bestiary D&D 5^th Edition is still missing a large number of iconic creatures from D&D (presumably they’ll be making their official appearance down the road). One of my favorite iconics, first appearing in AD&D 1^st edition’s Fiend Folio, is the Grell. What follows is my adaptation of the Grell in D&D 5^th edition terminology, based primarily on the 3^rd edition version of the Grell introduced in the 3E Monster Manual II, to serve as a placeholder until the “real” grell makes its official appearance.

Grell

Medium Aberration

Armor Class 16

Hit Points  32 (5D8+10)

Speed 5 ft, fly 30 ft

Senses Blindsight 60 feet

STR 12 (+1), DEX 15 (+2), CON 14 (+2), INT 10, WIS 11, CHA 9 (-1)

Alignment neutral evil

Languages common, undercommon

Traits:

Stealthy-grell are ambush predators and gain a +5 bonus to Dexterity (stealth) checks.

Blindsight-grell do not have normal eyesight, “seeing” instead by means of scent, vibrations and air patterns around it for sixty feet. Grell do not need to make wisdom (perception) checks to detect anyone moving within this range, even if those individuals are stealthed, unless that creature is incorporeal or can otherwise move without disturbing the air or causing even the slightest vibrations.

Grell Tentacles-each grell tentacle is deadly, equipped with poisonous barbs that can paralyze prey.  A grell has ten such tentacles; striking at one tentacle and dealing 10 points of damage will severe the tentacle, but the attacker must be grappled to do this. Damage dealt toward a tentacle like this does not get applied to the grell’s total hit points. The grell can regrow a severed tentacle in 24 hours.

Immunities-grell are immune to electricity and paralysis effects.

Grell Flight-grell fly as if they have the Fly spell permanently in effect. They also act as if they have feather fall in effect, and cannot take falling damage even if unconscious.

Actions:

Multiattack-the grell can make as many attacks as it has tentacles.

Melee Attack-Tentacle: +4 to hit (reach 10 ft; one creature). Hit 3 (1D4+1) piercing damage plus paralyzation (see below).

Paralyzation: any creature struck by a grell’s tentacle attacks must make a Constitution save vs. Paralyzation DC 12 or become paralyzed for 4 rounds.

Grapple Attack: a grell which attacks and hits a creature one size smaller (or more) than it is immediately subject to a free grapple attack from the grell. Each round the grell retains the grapple the creature automatically takes tentacle damage and must save vs. paralysis.

Melee Attack-Beak Bite: +3 to hit (reach 5 feet; one creature). Hit 5 (2D4) piercing damage. Grell don’t usually bite unless desperate or if they are eating paralyzed prey.

Encounter Building:

Level 5, XP 340

The Many Days of Horror! - Revenants in D&D Next

Revenants in Dungeons & Dragons 5^th Edition

The revenant was first introduced as a playable race in an issue of Dragon Magazine, and quickly adopted as a full option later on. The Revenant appeared in “Heroes of Shadow” which remains one of my favorite 4^th edition era books, full of good stuff for use with a macabre campaign centered in the Shadowfell.  It was part of the post-Essentials line of 4E books, one of the first in fact, and so was a bit divisive among some 4E fans that preferred the style/feel of the pre-Essentials content vs. the post-Essentials approach.

I can say this much: the revenant is a cool concept, a sort of undead who has been given a new lease on life, usually by a divine power (The Raven Queen in 4E) with an interest in using a determined agent in the mortal plane to get some task done or some wrong righted. Revenants could be a product of any god of the dead or undead….Orcus, Pluto/Hades, Nergal, Morrigan, Ereshkigal….you name it. Any god could grab a petitioner of their court and turn them into a revenant, destined to accomplish some long term goal that requires a free-willed undead.

Converting the revenant to 5^th edition (the September Final Playtest version) is pretty easy, actually. I have retained a few of the 4E-isms in the conversion because they don’t break the system in any way (i.e. having a choice of two stats to apply a bonus to) and done the rest as a “design appropriate” conversion to reflect the 5^th edition principles and mechanics.

Revenant Adventurer Statistics:

Modifiers: Dex +1 and choose one: charisma or constitution +1

Size: medium

Speed: 30 feet

Revenant Properties:

Lowlight vision: Revenants have lowlight vision, and are able to see in low light with the same ability as elves and other species with the same trait.

Language: common and one other that may be appropriate to whatever the revenant knew in his or her former life.

Undead Traits: like other undead revenants are immune to disease, poison and necrotic damage. Revenants cannot be put to sleep, and do not in turn need sleep (though they need four hours of meditation as an elf to recover magic). Revenants do not  eat or drink except as they choose to.

Past Life: revenants may take on an aspect of their former life; choose one race with which to identify from the revenant’s former living existence and gain its qualities for purposes of nature. Thus an elven revenant would be typed  as an elf for purposes of effects that relate to elves.

Unnatural Vitality: when you would be unconscious or dying you retain consciousness, not dropping until actual death (but you continue to act as you would with negative hit points otherwise for purposes of mortality checks). During this period you may take actions as normal but are at disadvantage on all actions.

Dark Reaping: revenants can syphon a portion of death energy away from an individual who has died or is near death. When a creature within 25 feet of you hits 0 hit points you may add 1D6 necrotic damage to your next attack. This ability can be regained after use following a short rest.

Sample Revenant:

Varaman dann Praedor

Octzellan knight, human revenant, fighter                

Level     1                             

Alignment:         neutral good

Background:       Noble                   

Homeland:         Octzel (Capitol)

STR         16 (+3)

DEX        13 (+1)

CON       16 (+3)

INT         10 (0)

WIS        9 (-1)

CHA       10 (0)

HPs        13

Proficiency +1

AC          16 (chain mail)

Move    30’ (25’ in armor)

Languages: Common (middle tongue), orcish, Old Tongue

Skills: Athletics (STR),  History (INT), Insight (WIS), Persuasion (CHA)

Fighter Traits: Great Weapon Fighting (deal STR dmg on miss), Second Wind (1D6+fighter level temp hit points for 5 minutes)

Noble Traits: 3 retainers: Jorvune Grayson, butler; Tamarin Dane, squire, and Lady Arianna Tovalish, publicity agent

Equipment: fine clothes, signet ring, sealing wax, scroll of pedigree, riding horse, saddle, bridle, grooming kit, feed (1 wk), 29 GP, 5 SP

Chainmail armor (AC 16, -5 feet move, Disadv. Stealth)

Greatsword (2D6+3 slashing, heavy two-handed)

3 hand axes (1D6+3 slashing, light thrown 20/60)

Varaman dann Praedor was a foppish noble who had trained in the martial arts at his father’s behest but was in fact a natural rake, always chasing women and getting into trouble. His death was ignominious; while riding drunk along the street adjacent to the Dreaming Wall in Octzel with two lasses he fell from his horse and broke his neck.

Hermes, assigned the task of dragging his unworthy soul to the underworld for judgement took pity upon the man, and decided to let him return with one missive: he must commit to four great deeds to make himself worthy before the gods. With that Varaman dann Praedor awoke, a revenant, and now only his most dedicated servants continue to work with him, aware of his true nature, to help the wayward knight ascertain what his second chance calling will amount to.

Reading 5th Edition's Final Playtest: it's got me now

If D&D holds its course with the September Final Playtest.....if the game ends up fairly close to what is effectively the final version of the game we will see before an actual print edition hits sometime next year....then I think they have me hooked.

I've been reading the latest playtest carefully, and designing a metric ton of characters for it. I've been tinkering with scenarios (kind of easy to be honest) and poking and prodding it to see how it behaves. It's honestly working very well for my needs, and is surprising me in a few distinct ways.

Some examples?

First: there have been two camps on the 4E influence in DDN: you either see it or you don't. This version of the playtest puts stake to that divide, though; I do not see any more 4E DNA in the game anymore; in fact they seem to have gone through great efforts to painstakingly excise as much as they could from the 4E comparison list. I think the only "4Eishness" I can find is an occasional reference to a short rest to recover certain abilities....meaning certain traits and powers are actually "encounter" abilities, in 4E parliance...but you'd have to be looking carefully to notice them, and also be more than a bit familiar with the 4E methodology to find the comparison noteworthy.

Magic Missile? Back to a level 1 effect. Lance of Faith? apparently excised from the game entirely...or at least the playtest. Yeah...not even a priest of light gets to play laser cleric anymore (although the holy hand grenade is now present in the form of an impressive light channeling effect option).

Hit points? Something we can all recognize. Healing? A smidgen of 4E DNA lies here with the hit die recovery mechanic. It's considerably less offensive to one's sense of verisimilitude than the old healing surges were but still may take some effort for old schoolers to get used to.

Skills were briefly extracted from the playtest but they are back in force and a simple mechanic that ties skill effectiveness to class proficiency, a catch-all number for improving score in attacks, skills and saves. This allows for skills to be more meaningful and in depth, while still making skill checks on attributes a thing. It's really very elegant.

I'm not so sure about the whole "tools" concept but need to explore it more before I cast judgement.

I have managed to roll up about 5 D&D characters in forty minutes. That's a new character...fully statted and equipped....in an average of 8 minutes apiece. Wow.

The spells are great so far. I like how most all of them work in execution. The elegance on the system is starting to show...it's a very intuitive set of rules, actually. It's a big mass of different PDFs and yet it feels very elegant, it makes me want to play it. That's a very good sign.

The monster stat blocks continue to look good, continue to be simple and effective, and the math is starting to look coherent. They've got (most of) their numbers under control now...it's much, much better than the early stages of the playtest when the numbers were all over the place and made no sense.

I'll be resuming another playtest campaign this Saturday. I plan to make this my only game system for Saturdays from now on. I'll let the Pathfinder players enjoy their Wednesday....for now....but eventually, D&D 5E is going to replace Pathfinder for me; it's too close to what I really want in D&D, and I'm really impressed that they managed to do it. This game system feels so much better, so much more intuitive than the last two editions....and it's more modest, pulls back to the style (if not exact mechanics) of 1st and 2nd edition.

I still think D&D 5E has a tough wall to climb with Pathfinder and the entrenched OSR fandom....but I feel it has a far better chance of finding its own niche than I did a few months ago.

Yes, this means you'll be seeing a lot of 5E stuff in the blog from here on out. I am that predictable!

Y'know, there are a lot of modules out for 5E now...(oh and skills are back in)

I've been pouring over all that has manifested for, around or in relation to 5th edition D&D and suddenly realized that for a game which isn't technically out yet, and for which the playtest is in constant flux, there really is a ton of actual content for use with it right now in one form or another:

There's the playtest packet itself which contains The Caves of Chaos, The Mines of Madness, The Isle of Dread, Reclaiming Blingdenstone and the Mud Sorcerer's Tomb.

There's the S-Series Dungeons of Dread which has a full stat-block 5E booklet available in the playtest packet.

There's the A-Series Secret of the Slavers modules which includes a new lead-in and also has a fully statted enhancement for use with 5E in the playtest packet.

There's The Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle which was a GenCon exclusive but due to my contacts I got a copy without paying an arm and a leg. It has four more modules and the rules inside are as current as the June playtest packet. I haven't had as much time to read it as I'd like (see earlier posts bitching about why) but what I have read has piqued my interest and tempted me to move the book from the "collectible" pile to the "use it" pile.

Lastly there's Murder in Baldur's Gate, which I picked up this weekend and which has a downloadable enhancement for 5E (as well as 4E and 3E). Speaking of which it's a pretty cool module....more than half of it is just campaign content on Baldur's Gate, and a generally cool resource at that. My only complaint with it is the books could have used heavier cardstock covers instead of the flimsy magazine covers they actually have.

So all in all that's 19 modules ready for use with D&D 5th edition. Not bad for a game which hasn't even settled down in its development cycle yet!

In Mike Mearls' latest post he outlines the return of a more specific set-rank skill system that from the description sounds like it will work well for everyone except those who wanted no skill system at all. Good....now, if I can just see some multi-classing rules...

More Wisdom from Sterling: Just substitute "Focus Groups" for "Playtest Groups"

Fair warning! Jim Sterling can either be hysterically amusing or banally irritating with his videocast personality, depending on your tastes. Don't let his persona get in the way of sound wisdom. This video talks about the problems in the video game industry with focus groups changing the style and direction of a game, and subsequently wrecking the title as a result because what a focus group says it likes and what those people actually like are far too often very different things.

I think there's more than a nugget of truth here and I also think if you substitute "playtest groups" or "survey groups" for "focus groups" you get some eerily predictive results on the way development for D&D Next is going. And keep in mind I'm enjoying the D&D Next playtest at this moment, but not without the caveat that the game is nowhere near being competitive enough to usurp my continued dedication to Pathfinder.

EDIT: Hey, Escapist, turn off aut-play in your embedded script!

Here's a link to the site instead, since I HATE videos that start playing automatically.

Anyway....something to think about with regards to both the video game industry and the implications of what's happening with DDN. The similarities are a bit too close for comfort, I think. My hope is that the analogy is ultimately faulty....that a playtest group, and the people responding to WotC's surveys are actually more involved and more representative of the overall gaming crowd for D&D. I am pretty sure a very small percentage of people are actually playtesting DDN, while the rest act out and cast judgement after a quick read-through of each packet--if that--or sit around armchair designing with spherical cows all day long.

Playtesting Dungeons & Dragons Next

My Tuesday night group met and I presented them with three options: Magic World, Pathfinder, or D&D Next. We discussed it and after a bit everyone there opted to try out D&D Next. Of the players I had, only one had previously been in one of my earlier DDN playtests (one of the first, in fact) so he got to see the system in a more "evolved" state.

Long story short, we had a blast, and will continue with DDN for now. The rules in play feel pretty smooth and are so far proving very consistent. The advantage/disadvantage mechanic remains a real popular feature, and as DM I've warmed up to it now that the rules provide numerous guidelines and triggers on how/when to implement it. Spells and various actions produced adv/dis throughout play and players quite enjoyed being able to grant these effects as they grokked just how useful they could be.

The group had a human druid, dwarven fighter, wood elf cleric (lightbringer), human paladin (warden), human wizard and wood elf rogue (thief). All of the classes seemed to function well, and the fighter was rather effective.

Spell Blocks

There were a few spells and effects which raised questions. The fighter had an ability which seemed to state that you could spend an expertise die for damage and also grant advantange, but he was wondering if that meant he didn't have to expend the die while still granting advantage. I ruled that he could, but I'm reasonably sure that wasn't what was intended. Sanctuary, another classic spell, seemed to suggest that you could cast it on others but not yourself by way of wording, but we all agreed that it probably was intended that a cleric could cast it on herself. So there are some odd bits like this.

The Exceptions of 3rd edition are Baked in to 5th

A metric ton of stuff that boiled down to conditionals dependent on granted abilities (usually through feats) from 3rd and in some cases 4th edition were now "baked in" assumptions in DDN, which my players quickly warmed up to. Finesse being a property of some weapons rather than something you learn, for example...or dual wielding being something anyone can do without strict penalties, but with additional permissions making it better from feats. Armor proficiency being the only restriction to spell casting was another, as was the way that concentration now works as a convenient "rule of thumb" approach with some specific guidelines. This was good stuff.

Swift Action Spells

Swift action spells were pretty cool, and the players were all very interested in what they meant. Reactions didn't pop into play as often as I had expected...yet. We're still at level 1, time enough for that later on. Swift action spells had the same stat block repeated ad nauseum. I guess that's useful for the playtest document but hopefully they don't need to do this in the final product.

Leveling Pace

Speaking of leveling, even though the PCs defeated three traps, fought two animated suits of armor, a horde of lemure devils and avoided an undead-releasing trap (all in about 2 1/2 hours of play, since we spent the other half of the night designing the characters and exploring options) they did not level up. As it turns out, the XP gain is scaled down appropriately such that a 250 XP requirement for 2nd level will probably take 2-3 play sessions to earn. My concern about the advancement rate in DDN has subsided a bit, for now.

Healing Mechanic

The hit die mechanic for resting seemed to work well. We're doing the default rest mechanic and so far it seems to feel "right" to me which is interesting, as it's prior incarnation in earlier playtests definitely felt a bit off. One problem everyone with a spell caster noticed however was that the starting spell slots (and the rate of advancement) seemed to be fairly limiting. This is not something I as DM felt was bad, but I do expect them to figure out how to squeeze in an extended rest as soon as possible as the spell casters all expended their level 1 spells by the end of play.

Tool Proficiency?

There was a bit of confusion about proficiency in thieve's tools and the Disarm Trap feat. The rogue had proficiency granted by class, but the feat was looming nearby. It seemed like the intent was that the thief could, being proficient in his tools, attempt to disarm traps, but he lacked the feat so as best I could tell that meant he didn't get the skill die. It was kind of odd how they did it this way....you're basically spending a feat to get a skill.

Combat

On the DM's side of things I found that combat resolution was much simpler and more intuitive that it was in the early playtest rounds. The clarity came from better details on the action/movement/reaction/swift action economy and how it played out. The net result was we played the game  with narrative combat, not even a board, and it flowed very well. Combat was quick. At least as quick as in the 2E days. It still retained a lot of interesting variables. It works extremely well in the theater of the mind narrative approach. I will have to try it with a grid and minis sometime, but admit that its clearly not necessary. This is a Huge Plus.

Skill Resolution Mechanics and DCs

The "flat" math of DDN made a lot of calculations such as DCs a simple matter, I noticed.

The skill mechanic resolutions were detailed and helpful. I've read in some spots that the skill system lacks clarity; while it might be nice to have some expository text on each skill's intent, the DC mechanics for resolution was clear as day.

I noticed that cleverly optimized PCs could guarantee decent DC spell checks, and as a result the monsters were failing saves pretty frequently. The absence (in all spells we used) of any sort of touch attack mechanic threw the players off initially, but when they realized all they had to do was cast and wait for me to check the saves on the monsters they rather liked it. Personally I prefer systems that load the die rolling on the players' side as it helps them feel more engaged....so the idea of a hit-roll save mechanic initiated by the player is more my cup of tea, but the system as presented did work very well and no one had an issue with it.

Monster Stat Blocks

Monsters do not have an initiative score, which means you go by Dex mod. This seems odd to me, as one could in theory have a higher initiative modifier than just Dex if you feel some trait of the monster justifies it, right? This could just be "3.5 think" going on, though, as the system as presented is very closely aligned to the 1E/2E methodology.

The monster stat blocks were otherwise (imo) perfect. This is one area I think they've got down to a science now, and all they need to do now is add lots of great descriptive stuff and some awesome illustrations.

More D&D releases now up: 2nd edition reprints, Dungeons of Dread S Series cover, and more

Wizards of the Coast updated their product lineup for 2013, so we can officially see what the S-Series module cover will look like, there are now actual entries for the 2nd edition reprints of the core rules (yay) and the first "Sundering" module from Ed Greenwood is now listed for an August 20th release.

It's interesting, as the module seems to very specifically avoid mentioning system requirements...it's just for "D&D," so I wonder if they plan to release it in a manner compatible with any of the editions that are now (or will be) back in print? Wonder if 4E will be overlooked here, too.... Either way, the fact that it doesn't specifically talk about serving as a lead-in or intro to 5th edition suggests the module will be designed for cross-edition functionality, but without actually saying that, its all just the usual conjecture and speculation.

Anyway, here's what the Dungeons of Dread S series cover is going to look like:



Nice. It's now slated for a March 19th release....so not too far away. I may have decided that 1st edition and I just don't agree with one another, but the modules are a different story, and I'll be able to use this just fine with the 2nd edition rulebooks.

Speaking of which, the three 2nd edition rulebook cover images look like placeholders--please, please PLEASE let them be place-holders, because the DMG/PHB images shown are from the black-border reprints circa 1995ish and those were some notoriously butt-ugly covers. The Monstrous Manual, however, was always a pretty decent cover so I won't complain if they recycle that one.



No cover yet for "Murder in Baldur's Gate" but read the description here. Between this module and the recent release of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition for PC and Mac (I'm holding out for the android edition), we will be able to party like it's 1998 all over again!


UPDATE

Also, MIke Mearls is talking details about the "core" or simplest version of the game (here), on which additional rules/options will layer. It's interesting stuff, not least of which because the core rules he's describing sound about as old-school and "back to roots" as D&D can get short of the reprints...and maybe moreso, since this will be a refinement of the game that does a redux and dispenses with both the modern layered complexity to simplify its core, and also the old school complexity that arose from the stitched-together rules-bedlam that was common in the early days as the game began to grow.

D&D 5th Edition Latest playtest package is up - and it's starting to look good...

The latest playtest package went up yesterday, and it's starting to look kind of...good....! It's not that I didn't expect it to eventually shape up into something playable and persistent; despite reservations at times I do have confidence in the designers at WotC that they are sincere in their efforts to make a game we can all appreciate (or at least one that I will).

The latest playtest has twenty levels defined for the core classes plus monks (what happened to sorcerers and warlocks??? They are missing, it turns out). It's got lots of backgrounds, specialties, and tons of expertise dice for every class (it's now a core feature everyone can employ). It's got feats that seem to stop at level 9 (some speculation on whether feats will continue to accrue with prestige classes?) and it's got a massive bestiary of around 180 or so monsters to kickstart playtest campaigns in to gear. There are four modules now for those who don't do their own, or feel more comfortable keeping the playtest on guided rails.

There's still lots of D&D yet to appear in DDN, but as of right now this playtest offers more content and ready material than most other fantasy RPGs out there.

Anyway, I've started the discussion with my local group, and the plan is to take this puppy for a full playtest ride beginning in January. I guess 2013 will have some dungeon delving and dragon slaying in it after all (and plenty of Pathfinder still for Wednesdays!)

D&D Next Playtest Round 2

I have the next round of the DDN playtest in hand (well, in the Nook) and am reading through it. I'm more reserved in my comments and opinions for the moment, but a few observations...

1. They've got the promised character generation rules. This is good; it's helping to forge a decent picture of how the game works. The backgrounds have been revamped a bit, too....and there's a proper skill list.

2. Fighters have exploding expertise dice that regenerate each round. That can use these to empower various maneuvers. This is some pretty progressive stuff....fans of DCC might notice some vague similarities, but this is the first mechanic I've seen for DDN so far that is otherwise very distinct to the new edition.....but fighters already look much more interesting here than the sample fighter from playtest one was.

3. That necromancer theme (well, specialty) is pretty cool. The revamp to specialties makes a bit more sense. Sort of like the archetype concept in Pathfinder now, but with directed/thematic feats tied to them.

4. Monsters seem to have gotten a bit of a makeover at a cursory glance, and they appear to have annihlated the flavor text, interestingly. I presume they figure that leaving flavor text in was only confusing people? No idea.

5. Hit points got massively scaled back. The 4E fans who are decrying the retro elements of DDN will be angry.

6. Hit dice and the hit die heal mechanic remain, but they now provide four options for how to manage hit die and hit point recovery....the standard option is fastest, but three other choices lead to different ways the two resourced are recovered and managed, with the slowest leading to a case where a long rest recovers no HP, but only 1+Con Mod HD which you can then spend to recover some HPs. This is the first obvious case of "multiple option rules" to suit to taste. I like the way they are doing this so far.

There are more changes....but I shall report on them as they show up. This document is looking a lot more robust, now. I think I'll have to spring a new playtest on everyone this week.

Penny Arcade always Knows How to Make My Day

Penny Arcade always knows how to make my day!

More fun links on Dungeons & Dragons Next

There's a discussion of the seminars, events and games to be featured which will discuss the forthcoming edition at the D&D Experience later this month here. I am particularly interested in how they plan to unify all prior editions. My suspicion is that they plan to provide a set of rules that will allow for the thematic elements that people associate with prior editions while still being a distinct new set of mechanics all its own. The easiest way, I feel, to make D&D Next (or whatever its called) feel the most like D&D in the minds of its players is to not only haul those sacred cows back in from the field, but to treat them like bovine gods, fatten them up, and groom them heavily.

ENworld has discussion here, but I haven't seen it yet because their site is most likely overwhelmed with traffic on the issue (ENWorld sadly hasn't got a good threshold for high traffic volume on stuff like this).

RPG.net is freaking out over here. It's a lot more civil than I expected, and generally more optimistic than one might expect. It's fun reading the first ten or so pages of the thread, where wild speculation about how NY Times would never report on this unless it involved the sale of WotC is brought up regularly.

I'm sure there are other interesting spots, but I don't think we're going to have any newer or cooler details until after D&D Expo and WotC starts some official open playtesting.

I'm looking forward to this. I've been playing and enjoying 4E heavily since it was first released (along with several other editions of D&D), and I own every 4E book out there, but I'm no system war fanboy; they needed to do this, to get an edition out there that respected the totality of the fans and was not trying to jam square pages into round books and all that.



ADDENDUM: Morrus at ENWorld does indeed have a great scoop on this and even got to play a rought playtest game of 5th edition. Great reading here about it, and he confirms that the intended model is a core rulebook with a good set of basic rules, followed by a modular approach to all the add-on rules expansions you could want.

All in all, some very good news here. Time will tell, but I feel like WotC is finally taking D&D in a good direction again.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is Now Official

Mike Mearls' kicks it off right here on Legends & Lore. It's going to be an open development process, there's apparently an early playtest copy that will show up at the D&D Experience later this month, and its apparently going to be as crowd-sourced and public a process as they can get, which is a smart move I think....work with the existing body of gamers, we're the ones who do all the new recruiting, anyway.

Me, I'm just happy they announced it so all the wild speculation and rampant fear-mongering can end. It is a bit ironic that in all likelihood this means that last year's rumors that bounced around were all probably true, more or less.



ADDENDUM: Actually, who knows "how good a thing" this will be....I made the mistake (as always!) of reading the follow up commentary by posters to the announcement. Sigh.....I know that the living, breathing posters of the interwebs are not the same as the normal people who do not spend all their time online bitching endlessly about stuff, but its still bad tidings when the edition war crowd turns so ugly so quickly at this announcement.